Speakeasy guide: Hidden bars in Lexington, Cincinnati and one that plans a return

Entry to this speakeasy didn’t require whispering a secret password to someone named Guido — just an admission ticket.

Nor did you need a clue and a map to an undisclosed location. The line wrapping around the Grand Reserve in the Distillery District showed exactly where the action was.

Once inside, however, the venue had been transformed into a dark dungeon, perfect for transferring the eerie tales of Edgar Allan Poe from the page to the stage.

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Welcome to the Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy, a traveling show that combines tales and cocktails: Poe’s most chilling stories accompanied by some pretty scary adult beverages.

The performance started with an increasingly manic monologue from “The Tell-Tale Heart,” as audience members sipped on a concoction called the Pale Blue Eye (citrus and blueberry-infused vodka, fresh squeezed lemon juice and simple syrup, topped with a pale blueberry eye). Those who’ve read the story know the significance of the eye.

It ended with a libation called Cocktail of the Red Death (raspberry-infused vodka, cranberry juice, fresh squeezed fruits and fresh lime juice) inspired by my own favorite Poe opus “The Masque of the Red Death.”

Sandwiched in between were dramatic scenes from “The Black Cat” and “The Raven.”

The former came with a bourbon and brandy Cat’s Meow cocktail with a touch of vanilla cinnamon milk, sweet cream and maple syrup.

The cocktail accompanying the latter, arguably Poe’s most famous work, was dubbed Nevermore (peach and orange blossom-infused vodka, simple syrup and crushed charcoal.)

If the enthusiastic response was any indication, the event was a rousing success, both from an artistic and libation standpoint.

The Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy teams up literary classics with one of the hottest trends in cocktails: Semi-secret bars, such as the speakeasys that sprang up when booze was banned.

Julia Tirinnanzi, creator of the Edgar Allan Poe Speakeasy, said that based on the response, they plan a return visit to Lexington next year, either with more Poe tales or excerpts from Gothic novels (as far as cocktails go, can we expect a Heathcliff Sour or a Bloody Rochester?)

You will have to wait for a theatrical evening of macabre cocktails, but you don’t have to wait for your next speakeasy experience. Lexington and surrounding cities are more than willing to take you back to the 1930s with these establishments.

Re-visit the Prohibition era with this guide and list of one of these atmospheric spots.

Trifecta Glass Art Lounge

243 Walton Avenue, Lexington

One might logically assume that an establishment with “art” in its name deals with art and not craft cocktails. In the case of Trifecta Glass Art Lounge, you get both.

A working glass studio, it also has a small gallery/museum showcasing the works of Stephen Powell, Travis Adams and other glass artists. However, behind a full-length wall mirror near a restroom, visitors find art of a different kind.

Push on the mirror and you’ll be transported to a speakeasy straight out of the Prohibition era. Decorated in shades of jewel green, ebony and rust, with a bar dominating one side of the intimate room, it has a cocktail menu as artistic as the blown glass vases.

Although the menu changes every three months complementing the current gallery show, some past offerings have included a martini served in a bell pepper and a cucumber-flavored vodka cocktail garnished with celery bitters and a half broken eggshell to resemble egg yoke.

If this is a bit too avant-garde for your taste, co-owner Travis Adams says go for a Rusty Nail, Negroni or one of their other “smoked classics.”

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Constitution Speakeasy

109 Constitution Street, Lexington

On a one-way downtown street, visitors walk up to a building, look around surreptitiously and slip in. Once inside, one might wonder why all the secrecy as nothing more ominous than bookshelves line the walls.

Welcome to Constitution “bookstore.” Push a bell, however, and you are admitted to an inner sanctum where classic Prohibition-era cocktails are on the menu — Old-Fashioneds and Manhattans with house-made syrups and purees.

If you’re into something more exotic, try the Jane Eyre (Earl Grey-infused gin, cherry blossom syrup, blueberry, lime and sparkling wine.)

Don’t be disappointed if — upon ringing the bell — you’re not immediately granted entrance (it’s an intimate space, having once served as a workshop for a denture-maker.) Be patient; it’s worth the wait.

Lexington ‘bookstore’ has a high-proof secret: Ring the bell to enter this speakeasy

St. Clair Hotel

311 St. Clair Street, Frankfort

Inside Frankfort’s newest boutique hotel, the St. Clair, is an inconspicuous door marked “Maintenance.” However, don’t expect to find any cleaning supplies.

What you will find is a speakeasy that would have appealed to Al Capone and his cronies. No bathtub gin here, as this speakeasy is all about top-shelf bourbons, most of them rare — Pappy, George T. Stagg and Blanton’s Gold among them.

Décor is opulent, with green velvet sofas, wood paneling, black and white checkerboard floor, metal decorative tables, glass lanterns suspended from stag’s heads (in tribute to George T.) and a ceiling evoking the night sky — painted black and studded with star lights.

All of this deserves your full attention, so cellphones for talking or taking pictures are discouraged.

“We want people to feel like they are stepping back in time,” says Heather Nutt, St. Clair’s vice president of marketing.

Hotel guests get in free; everyone else must purchase a day pass ($20).

Volstead Bourbon Lounge

107 E. Flaget Street, Bardstown

The passage of the Volstead Act on October 28, 1919, ushering in Prohibition, was a sad day for many Americans.

Fortunately, the opening of the Volstead Bourbon Lounge in Bardstown in 2022 caused no such gloom and doom. Just the opposite — it was a cause for celebration in the Bourbon Capital of the World.

For starters, there’s a selection of more than 400 bourbons, with a price range of $8 to $100 per shot. If you’d like to jazz it up a bit, try a craft cocktail such as a Bourbon Peach Bellini Slushee or a Bacon Bourbon Old-Fashioned.

Get comfy on one of the crushed velvet couches or leather chairs, and sample classic cocktails as they were made in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Ghost Baby

1314 Republic, Cincinnati

In Cincy’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, go under instead of over to discover a sensual, seductive speakeasy in a former tunnel.

A description of Ghost Baby reads like something from Jack Kerouac. You can just imagine the hippest of all road-trippers enjoying himself in a place described as a “dimly-lit den of juke, swaddled in crushed velvet; a clubby, grainy hideaway where every soul making an entrance transfigures the room.”

Or maybe with its plush pink brocade chairs made even more vivid under the rosy glow cast by chandeliers it would be more suited to Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, notable tipplers of the Jazz Age.

Whatever ... Ghost Baby is the epitome of cool, but things can heat up in a hurry, whether the result of the music (a hot jazz brass band) or cocktails such as the “Some Like it Hot” — chile-infused vodka, mezcal, soursop, lime, hibiscus, and hell-fire bitters).

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Prohibition Bourbon Bar

53 Washington Avenue, Newport

During the height of Prohibition, Newport, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, was as naughty as it gets. Gangsters and their molls, bootleg booze and befuddled G-men were ubiquitous in the city. So, it definitely deserves a bar like the Prohibition Bourbon Bar.

Often described as “the quirkiest whiskey bar in Kentucky,” Prohibition is located in a historic townhouse, and is said to have the largest collection of bourbon and rye whiskeys in the world, with an inventory of more than 6,000 bottles.

Far from being secretive, however, everyone knows owners Peter and Kim Newberry, but one thing you should know is that it opens for business only on Friday and Saturday nights.

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